40-yr-old attempts immolation to protest seer's arrest

Friday January 14 2005 09:10 IST

NEW DELHI: The Kanchi controversy had a bizarre fallout in the Capital on Thursday evening after a 40-year-old suffered 10 per cent burns when he tried to set himself ablaze, claiming that he was upset over the Shankaracharya’s arrest.

‘‘This kind of humiliation should not be meted out to any religious leader,’’ said Dashrath Sharma, after he was admitted to the emergency ward at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

The carpenter from Bihar’s Sasaram village set himself ablaze at the high-security Vijay Chowk in New Delhi in the presence of dozens of policemen and ended up getting badly burnt in the face, chest and shoulders before he was rescued.

‘‘I had felt deeply hurt and had been suffering within for the last two months. I first thought of organising a protest in Patna but then headed for Allahabad and other religious places,’’ said Sharma, adding that he reached Delhi on Thursday morning.

‘‘I hadn’t planned anything but I wanted to protest. I don’t know what happened,’’ said the father of four, the eldest 17 years old.

According to police, Sharma poured the polish thinner he was carrying on his body and set himself on fire at around 4:10 pm.

He had also written a suicide note, which said he was taking his life as the arrest of the ‘‘dharamguru’’ was not acceptable.

Sharma said that though he wasn’t a religious person he had been pained with the Shankaracharya’s arrest. ‘‘I don’t perform puja daily nor do I go to a temple often. But this thing really shook me,’’ he said.